Support Irish Products

sfwcork

Im kinda sick of hearing of all this sh!te on the radio or tv.I pay my tax every month, I pay high tax on every product or service alreadyIm already doing my bit for the country.Hell I even do Volunteer workI see this is just a guilt trip campaign for the government that fail to look after their ownIf it worked well we wouldnt be thanked would we? gov would take al the slaps on the backIrish products in retail are 30-50% more expensive

Crooked Jack

I agree with buying Irish in theory but at a practical level, when the spuds from the field up the road are somehow €5 dearer than the ones from Spain, it's just not always possible.

Crooked Jack

Supermarkets seem to be largely to blame for this, rather than the farmers

admiralofthefleet

i do every time i shop. im proud to say that at least 95% of my trolley is totally irish. i dont even buy northern irish as it doesnt benefit our producers

Omackeral

Can we support Irish soccer teams while we're at it instead of just fawning over English clubs?

Oranage2

I only buy from small townships co ops in west Africa and central America, too many chemicals in the Irish crap and knowing im helping support 3rd world countries makes it taste extra special

Dubh Geannain

You have to admit though, those Kiltafeely Ballybridge Water sausages are superb

castletownman

I only use Irish soil.

None of that foreign muck

King Of Wishful Thinking

I had a bottle of O'Hara's stout in the Airport Terminal the other day, you're welcome.

Dravokivich

If it's not MSG laden corn feed mass produced mega factory US product, I don't wanna know about it.

GalwayGuy2

I kind of think it's a load of crap. The agricultural sector is so big shouldn't they be able to compete with foreign business and also I'd love to know how much we exported our "good" quality and imported "poor" quality in during the Celtic tiger. I just try and balance price and quality. I was looking at a packet of Denny sausages and they're like only 56 percent pork? Is that good or bad quality?:S

admiralofthefleet

GalwayGuy2 wrote: »

I kind of think it's a load of crap. The agricultural sector is so big shouldn't they be able to compete with foreign business and also I'd love to know how much we exported our "good" quality and imported "poor" quality in during the Celtic tiger. I just try and balance price and quality. I was looking at a packet of Denny sausages and they're like only 56 percent pork? Is that good or bad quality?:S

thats poor quality

Crooked Jack

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

i do every time i shop. im proud to say that at least 95% of my trolley is totally irish. i dont even buy northern irish as it doesnt benefit our producers

Yes it does, an Irish producer is an Irish producer, regardless of where in Ireland he's from. Why don't you just go totally parochial with it and only buy produce from Arklow.

bbam

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

thats poor quality

no..
thats the minimum standard as set out.. thats all they have been for years.

I also think Denny do a higher % pork sausage.

admiralofthefleet

bbam wrote: »

no..
thats the minimum standard as set out.. thats all they have been for years.

I also think Denny do a higher % pork sausage.

i never mentioned anything about the minimum standard, i just believe that % of park in a sausage is poor

admiralofthefleet

Crooked Jack wrote: »

Yes it does, an Irish producer is an Irish producer, regardless of where in Ireland he's from. Why don't you just go totally parochial with it and only buy produce from Arklow.

i buy a lot from farms and markets around arklow. but tell me how does buying foreign produced (northern ireland) benefit the irish coffers

beerbaron

King Of Wishful Thinking wrote: »

I had a bottle of O'Hara's stout in the Airport Terminal the other day, you're welcome.

God bless you Sir !

starbelgrade

GalwayGuy2 wrote: »

I kind of think it's a load of crap. The agricultural sector is so big shouldn't they be able to compete with foreign business and also I'd love to know how much we exported our "good" quality and imported "poor" quality in during the Celtic tiger. I just try and balance price and quality. I was looking at a packet of Denny sausages and they're like only 56 percent pork? Is that good or bad quality?:S

The agri-food export business in Ireland is massive and is one of the few industries that has continued to grow in recent years. Irish milk & beef products are doing particularly well mainly due to the fact that they are recognised abroad as being of a very high standard.

On the flip side, we do import & produce a lot of crap food. This is down to one thing - demand. And this demand, is partly driven by ignorance - you would have to say when you realise that people don't know the difference between a good quality sausage and a bad one.

It never ceases to amaze me how consumers shop so badly & care so little about the quality of the food they eat. For example, most of the meats which supermarkets supply are either low grade and/ or full of preservatives. They fly off the shelves. Meanwhile, people ignore the fact that there are thousands of local butchers who sell much better produce across the country and quite often at similar or even lower prices than the supermarket equivalents.

Not everything we eat can be grown or reared locally, but I always try to shop local. Sometimes it costs a bit more, but I'm willing to pay the extra to get better quality produce & to keep the business local.

Also, you can't complain about the lack of jobs & businesses closing if you don't actually support them.

CruelCoin

This whole "buy irish" is a farce.

Example: went into pc world to get some new headphones. €85. Ok i thought, good money for a good make. Turns out i could get it online for €25 with free delivery (i love my barcode scanner app).

I will pay a little extra to have it today, but any more than 10% extra or so and tough ****, my money's going abroad.

jester77

I can Irish guarantee you that an Irish manufactured keyboard would come with a . key.

starbelgrade

CruelCoin wrote: »

This whole "buy irish" is a farce.

Example: went into pc world to get some new headphones. €85. Ok i thought, good money for a good make. Turns out i could get it online for €25 with free delivery (i love my barcode scanner app).

I will pay a little extra to have it today, but any more than 10% extra or so and tough ****, my money's going abroad.

PC World aren't an Irish company & none of the products they produce are manufactured in Ireland.

RGDATA!

CruelCoin wrote: »

This whole "buy irish" is a farce.

Example: went into pc world to get some new headphones. €85. Ok i thought, good money for a good make. Turns out i could get it online for €25 with free delivery (i love my barcode scanner app).

I will pay a little extra to have it today, but any more than 10% extra or so and tough ****, my money's going abroad.

not a great example given that
a) PC world would be a UK company
b) the headphones more than likely weren't Irish made either

sfwcork

sure isnt jameson cheaper in most countries besides ireland?

Drakares

I bought a new suit at the start of the year from a suit shop in town, with the intention of buying a second one when my next payday came around.

The guy who owned the shop was very friendly, then when I told him I was thinking of getting another, he was so happy to bring to me his "finest" and "best value" even though he know it was 150 over my budget.

He went on to tell me how he's a "local Irish" business and to come back to him and he'll "sort me out" with a bargain, and definitely not to go to the "foreigner across the road who's been stealing all of his business".

I never went back to him.

bbam

GalwayGuy2 wrote: »

I kind of think it's a load of crap. The agricultural sector is so big shouldn't they be able to compete with foreign business

The big problem facing the Irish agri sector is a loss of economy of scale, Irish farms are just too small. there is a shift towards more larger farms but the shift probably isn't quick enough..
Ireland is also a high cost country to farm in, take the three bacic costs on Irish farms, fuel-feed-fertilizer, there have risen enormously, up to double 2009 costs.

K-9

Lidll and Aldi have plenty of good value Irish products and many of their own brand products are Irish, Tesco and the other multiples as well. You probably are buying cheap Irish products and don't even know it.

Dravokivich

starbelgrade wrote: »

PC World aren't an Irish company & none of the products they produce are manufactured in Ireland.

You mean sell, right?

CruelCoin

starbelgrade wrote: »

PC World aren't an Irish company & none of the products they produce are manufactured in Ireland.

The reasoning behind buying irish is always given as buy irish for irish jobs...

I couldn't give a toss what country the company is from, my point still stands. They overpriced, and that cash that could have supported irish jobs has gone abroad.

I could give an example of an irish company with irish products doing the same, but i couldn't be arsed. Most likely there would be a replacement product cheaper online anyway.

Standing point still stands.

kowloon

sfwcork wrote: »

sure isnt jameson cheaper in most countries besides ireland?

That would be our high tax on alcohol for the most part.

Seeing as there's a steak thread: The meat in this country is damn good. No need to buy vac packed meat that's travelled eleventy billion miles.

summerskin

bbam wrote: »

no..
thats the minimum standard as set out.. thats all they have been for years.

I also think Denny do a higher % pork sausage.

Hodgins FTW, 80% pork.

In general I find irish sausages to be muck. Prefer german or certain british (cumberland etc) ones, they are more meaty and actually have some flavour.
And for the rashers it's Danish all the way.

I don't give a crap where the food i buy comes from, i care about how it tastes. The best potatoes I've had lately were Tesco Organic ones from Israel, the best chicken was free range and french and the best lamb was new zealand.

Piliger

Unfortunately our education system doesn't enlighten people about how an economy really works, and the benefit to it of buying Irish. Also there will always be some people who really have no loyalty whatsoever to the country, only to themselves.

There should always be a balance. Irish producers cannot expect people to buy their product if they cannot offer a reasonably competitive price. Not always as cheap as imports, but affordably close. Otherwise we just support inefficiency and cost gauging.

I always buy Irish if the price is reasonable. If 10% more people did that we would have a lot more jobs, and more revenue to spend on the services and health and education that the same people whinge about constantly.

admiralofthefleet

K-9 wrote: »

Lidll and Aldi have plenty of good value Irish products and many of their own brand products are Irish, Tesco and the other multiples as well. You probably are buying cheap Irish products and don't even know it.

and recently they (aldi) have increased the amount of irish produce they sell

it does annoy me when the government ask us to buy irish because i bought a sandwich in the mater private a while ago that was produced in the uk. there is a massive sandwich factory in poppintree in dublin (freshways) that could supply the HSE but the buy foreign instead

squod

RGDATA! wrote: »

not a great example given that
a) PC world would be a UK company
b) the headphones more than likely weren't Irish made either

Yeah. most of the factories that make Irish goods in Ireland are manned by Eastern Europeans or workers from further afield.

Can't name ten companies that have greater than 50/50 ratios, domestic to foreign staff.

bbam

summerskin wrote: »

Hodgins FTW, 80% pork.

In general I find irish sausages to be muck. Prefer german or certain british (cumberland etc) ones, they are more meaty and actually have some flavour.
And for the rashers it's Danish all the way.

I don't give a crap where the food i buy comes from, i care about how it tastes. The best potatoes I've had lately were Tesco Organic ones from Israel, the best chicken was free range and french and the best lamb was new zealand.

Yes there are loads of high % pork sausages on the market and many of the irish produced ones are among the best I've tasted.

Irish butchers have wone best produced sausages for the second year in a row..
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1015/1224325258357.html

Its a sad reflection on anyone who can't go out and find premium irish products to replace products from abroad. With little effort an Irish farmed product can be found to fulfill nearly any budget people have. Personally I don't think Irish products should be competing in the lowest end of the market, its just another race to the bottom in which nobody wins, producer or consumer!

bbam

squod wrote: »

Yeah. most of the factories that make Irish goods in Ireland are manned by Eastern Europeans or workers from further afield.

Can't name ten companies that have greater than 50/50 ratios, domestic to foreign staff.

Why would that matter in the slightest, jobs in Ireland is what's important, not jobs for the Irish..
Someone in an Irish job is paying tax and spending money in the domestic market, this is what we need to get some momentum going in the ecomomy. The more money going round the ecomomy the sooner we get out of recession.
Every chance missed to buy an Irish produced product is simply handing over our chances of an economic recovery to another nation.

Jimoslimos

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

i never mentioned anything about the minimum standard, i just believe that % of park in a sausage is poor

In fairness, if sausages are your meat of choice then quality is usually of secondary concern, regardless of pork content.

Crooked Jack

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

i buy a lot from farms and markets around arklow. but tell me how does buying foreign produced (northern ireland) benefit the irish coffers

It's not foreign and I won't be dragged into this type of petty trolling. Good day.

B.A._Baracus

"Support Irish Products" is aload of bull****. Something a business says to try and increase revenue.

But the kicker is alot of places that are not even Irish state it :pac: Take Dealz. they even have a big irish flag on their plastic bags. Its an english company. Same owners as PoundLand.

Better one yet is my local spar. Has loads of Irish flags up, posters with support Irish, you name it. Not a single Irish person working there. I have reason to believe its owned by an eastern european person. How is that supporting the Irish? lol. :pac:

enda1

Since farmers have been living on benefits for the past 30 years, there's been no incentive to keep costs down. The protectionist industry has simply meant that they've become uncompetitive and have not modernised and consolidated. Tough titties to them who've taken so much and not given anything back to their forced customers.

gobnaitolunacy

For a country that supposedly prides itself on food, why can't I get a decent sausage that isn't a pasty pale pink/grey PORK sausage? Always pork, never beef Tried some supervalu own brand ones that tasted good, but were full of gristly bits.

The word 'Organic' on anything gives the supplier carte blanche to charge an inflated price.

Crooked Jack

enda1 wrote: »

Since farmers have been loving on benefits for the past 30 years, there's been no incentive to keep costs down. The protectionist industry has simply meant that they've become uncompetitive and have not modernised and consolidated. Tough titties to them who've taken so much and not given anything back to their forced customers.

I can only assume you're some ignorant townie who knows absolutely nothing about farming.
What benefits? Perhaps you're referring to certain subsidies some farmers can get for using their land in a certain way.
These are highly regulated and not the free-for-all money-fight that morons seem to think they are.
Seems to me it's only responsible that both the European and Irish governments should do what they can to ensure that the single most important industry in the country continues to survive

9959

Crooked Jack wrote: »

I can only assume you're some ignorant townie who knows absolutely nothing about farming.
What benefits? Perhaps you're referring to certain subsidies some farmers can get for using their land in a certain way.
These are highly regulated and not the free-for-all money-fight that morons seem to think they are.
Seems to me it's only responsible that both the European and Irish governments should do what they can to ensure that the single most important industry in the country continues to survive

Is farming 'the most important industry' in The Republic of Ireland?

Vita nova

Re supporting Irish products, one problem is that the owners of some Irish brand names go to great lengths to fool customers into believing their products are produced in Ireland when they are anything but. For example:

Lyons Tea was taken over by Unilever, and a few years later the factory in Dublin was shut(100+ employees laid off) and production moved to the UK. However, to fool customers into believing Lyons is still Irish, their ads feature a tea factory populated by workers with distinctive Irish accents. If it's not lying directly it's certainly misleading.

bbam

enda1 wrote: »

Since farmers have been loving on benefits for the past 30 years, there's been no incentive to keep costs down. The protectionist industry has simply meant that they've become uncompetitive and have not modernised and consolidated. Tough titties to them who've taken so much and not given anything back to their forced customers.

Ah yes... a new ill-educated ignorant low has been acheived in this thread.

So tell me, all famrs buy in fuel and fertilizer and 90% buy in feed in the form of grain or grain products, how has any farmer been able to influence the price of these? how has laziness in farmers caused diesel prices to double in two years??

Many farmers will agree that the subsidy system hasn't been good for farming as it is a poorly designed system and from country to country the rate of subs are quite different, French farmers are among the most subsidised farmers in europe, I suppose they're lazy too?? Beleive it or not all that has been acheived by the subsidity system is cheap food for consumers, it's essentially a means to subsidise the cost of food production to keep EU prices low.

As for those posters saying there is no point in buying Irish goods in stores where the "non-nationals" work... FFS, you're just pointing out to everyone that firstly are racist, and secondly have no understanding how commerce works and how generating economic activity within the economy works, lastly - have you seen their passports?, do they wear some sort of "non national" badges?? Is it a bit like the taxi's and their little racist green lights?.

gobnaitolunacy wrote: »

The word 'Organic' on anything gives the supplier carte blanche to charge an inflated price.

I agree there, personally I think organically produced goods are a pure neiche market product, produced for the paranoid consumer, I've looked at much research on this over time and there is as much saying its no better for you as there is saying its of any benifet. Neiche market products are always more expensive.
Decent, proper free range is a premium product and can be got at decent prices too.

enda1

I never said they were lazy.

In fact I don't see how anything I wrote is inherently wrong. The CAP combined with protectionist trade tariffs have led to far higher consumer prices than an open market would allow.

Cabbage_Head

enda1 wrote: »

Since farmers have been living on benefits for the past 30 years, there's been no incentive to keep costs down. The protectionist industry has simply meant that they've become uncompetitive and have not modernised and consolidated. Tough titties to them who've taken so much and not given anything back to their forced customers.

What a load of bollock. The reason farmers recieve EU payment is to ensure the sustained production of high quality products.

Simple example, a farmer rears a top quality continential animal to 650kg weight, 20 months work, which with a very generous kill out of 60% will give a carcass weight of around 390kg. The farmer makes a profit of 200 euro on this animal, and this is only cutting out variable costs such as feed and fertilizer, not including overheads. So some farmers may only put 150 euro in their pocket after this. That works out at, in very very simple terms, he recieves E2.60 per kg of meat? how much would you pay for a kilo of meat in a shop/butchers? If farmers were not recieving any subsidy, you can bet you would be paying TEN TIMES as much for your meat, as either price for meat would have to increase substantially, or farmers would go out of business, meaning less meat available, also meaning higher prices and, to be dramatic for the craic, less food for human consumption.

Similarly, i saw a kilo of lamb, not sure what kind or part, for 19 euro in tesco the other day. Currently, farmers are making E4.63 or thereabouts per kg of lamb they produce, not taking into account ANY costs. I mean, why would you bother?

Most farmers literally dedicate their lives to the production of top quality Irish meat, which is recognized all over the world for its superiority. They are not to blame for what is imported and exported, what it is sold for in the shops, they are just trying to make a living.

The EU payments that farmers recieve barely enable them to survive, but ensure that top quality meat is available at affordable prices. At 200 euro profit an animal, even with 50 animals a farmer would still be only coming out with 10k a year. You'd be better off on the dole.

For the record I am not a farmer, but i do work within the agri industry

enda1

Gimme a break. If you can't make a profit, leave the business or improve your techniques. Change your business plan (yes I know the term business plan will be new to many of you). THe whole system is set up, not to provide quality, but to placate the masses.

I don't need to be a farmer to have an opinion on where my taxes go. I'd prefer them to go towards building a sustainable industry than supporting a nostalgic mistake.

superblu

For the most part I'll just buy whatever products I perceive to be the best value regardless of their origin. I'd make no apologies whatsoever for this. I make an exception for Irish cheese. Some absolutely lovely cheeses made in Ireland at the moment.

kraggy

sfwcork wrote: »

sure isnt jameson cheaper in most countries besides ireland?

In a pub near me here in Seoul, a pint of Guinness is 6000 Korean Won, which is €4.22.

The Won is strong at the moment so it was actually less than €4 a few months ago.

Take in to account that:

a. the keg has been shipped all the way from Dublin
b. there's a large tax placed on imports by the Korean government (to create domestic employment)

...and you see that the prices we pay in Ireland are unreasonable, but in some cases due to high rents and taxes.

enda1

kraggy wrote: »

In a pub near me here in Seoul, a pint of Guinness is 6000 Korean Won, which is €4.22.

The Won is strong at the moment so it was actually less than €4 a few months ago.

Take in to account that:

a. the keg has been shipped all the way from Dublin
b. there's a large tax placed on imports by the Korean government (to create domestic employment)

...and you see that the prices we pay in Ireland are unreasonable, but in some cases due to high rents and taxes.

Is it produced in Ireland though. I know Guinness is produced in many plants throughout the world so perhaps Korea is not a St. James' Gate market.

sfwcork

I went to college with a huge farmer who got a full college grant because land was not taken into consideration

Please dont play this farmers are poor or farmers get nothing card.For decades land counted on zero fronts and you were well able to take advantage of that